Bioabsorbable surgical devices such as, for example, sutures, made from copolymers derived from one or more of glycolide, lactide, p-dioxanone, epsilon-caprolactone and/or trimethylene carbonate are known in the art. However, filaments prepared from certain such copolymers are not dimensionally stable and require a freezing step to maintain a desired physical dimension. See, e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,494,620 which discloses the details of and benefits derived from a freezing operation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,347 discloses a block copolymer wherein one of the blocks is made from hard phase forming monomers (preferably glycolide) and another of the blocks is made from soft phase forming monomers (e.g., p-dioxanone) copolymerized with randomly intermingled units of other soft phase forming monomers (e.g., trimethylene carbonate). In each working example of U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,347, after spinning and drawing a monofilament made from the copolymers disclosed therein, the monofilament is subjected to a freezing operation. Thus, while the resulting monofilaments have excellent physical properties for use as a suture, four distinct steps are used in the working examples; namely, spinning, drawing, freezing and annealing.
It would be desirable to provide a bioabsorbable suture which exhibits good flexibility and handling characteristics while maintaining other desired characteristics, such as knot strength, knot retention and desired absorption characteristics. It would also be desirable to produce such a suture in fewer manufacturing steps than have been previously employed.